


While He Dreams

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drama, War of the Ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 20:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3743284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suppose Sam wasn't going with Frodo to Rivendell. Frodo says goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While He Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

Author’s Note:  Pretend for a moment that Sam was not going with Frodo to Rivendell.Special thanks to my Beta-reader Storm and the Fellowship. You know who you are.  Read. Enjoy. Tell a friend.

\--

He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: 'I love him.  He's like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow.  But I love him, whether or no.'

_- The Two Towers, “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”_

While He Dreams

I must leave Sam.  

There is no question of that.  I must do this for Gandalf and Sam cannot come with me.  I know this, and yet, I wish it wasn’t this way.  He sleeps soundly in his room and I watch silently through the window.  I wish I could ask him to come with me, or at least be able to say goodbye before I run off.  He will find out when he comes to visit, bright and early, because that is the way he has started his morning for years.  Ever since Bilbo left, he had come to make sure I didn’t need any help.  And sometimes I didn’t.  More than likely, I was in dire need of some assistance, or at least some company.  And real company at that.  Not a Sackville-Baggins coming to check out the supposed tunnels below Bag-End, or someone wanting to know what I thought about Bilbo’s adventure “nonsense”, but a friend, who knew what I wanted to talk about, through pure intuition, and was more than happy to breech the subject.  I could always count on Sam to be there every morning, when I awoke, to greet me with a smile and, sometimes, breakfast.  But tomorrow morning he will come and peek into my room and I will not be there.  And he won’t understand.

He will run out to all the places I have been known to go and hide, asking around to find out if anyone has seen me.  And maybe someone will have noticed a shadow pass through the dark night in front of their hole, but no one will know if that shadow was young Frodo Baggins.  I will have disappeared.  He’ll probably run back to Bag-End, hoping that I have returned from some important errand that woke me before the sun rose.  But I will not be there.  He’ll stand, bewildered, in Bag-End.  He’ll worry.  He will wonder what he had done to displease me; his closest friend, and I will not be there to explain to him with tears in my eyes that he has never once in his lifetime displeased me.  I have never had a better friend.  

I walk quietly into his room, marveling at how the moonlight shines through the window, and plays on his sleeping face.  I want to hug him, to rest my head on his chest and listen to him breathe. I silently beg the forgiveness of the sleeping figure in front of me. _I am so sorry._   I hold back the tears that threaten to spill over at any moment, knowing that if I cry, he will wake.  He is a light sleeper when he wants to be, and surely he would snap up at the sound of crying.  Then I would have even more problems on my hands.  If he knew I was going, he would follow.  And that is something he cannot do.  He stirs slightly, pulling the blanket wrapped around him closer.  I see the window is open, and I feel the chill blowing in.  I move to the window and shut it, as silently as I can possibly do anything.  I wait for a moment, listening for any sign that I have awoken him.  But his breathing remains slow and quiet.  I look at him again, and I know then that if I do not leave now, I will never leave.  I leave as silently as I came, finally letting myself cry when I am far down the pathway and out of earshot.  I brush the tears from my eyes consoling myself with the knowledge that I will eventually return to Bag-End, and Sam will forgive me.  

I can only hope that time comes quickly.  


End file.
